Post by hi224 on Feb 14, 2021 3:53:25 GMT
case starts in April, 1975 when a group of children between the ages of 11-15. were playing just outside the Icelandic village of Faxaskjóli which back then was still separate from the capital Reykjavik. While there they discovered two large bones now believed to be thighs but their parents told them they were likely the bones of an animal proably a cow. The kids thought nothing about it until July 7 of the same year when one of the ids remembered the bones and they all decided to start digging which in turn caused them to discover more human like bones such as a jaw and some foot bones as well as a sock. They went back to one of the children's grandfather and brought them to the site where he then called the police.
Even back them the police were criticized for how unprofessional their investigation was at the start. First of all the police did not close off the crime scene so anyone was free to just enter. The two investigators assigned to the case were named Magnús Eggertsson and Haukur Bjarnason. Haukur told the press that the one site investigation lasted for 2 hours and that he was treating the case as a murder. While the investigation was going on the police didn't call for a professional to unearth/excavate the area and instead just let the children continue to dig and run around the crime scene hoping they would find the rest of the bones themselves something Haukur admitted to allowing happen under his watch saying that the police will welcome any bones or evidence that they find.
The police then asked residents about the site around Faxaskjóli and if they heard of anything unusual going in that area in the past but nothing came to mind. The police then left saying they wouldn't investigate the site unless any new evidence came that required it.
The kids however continued after the police left and even got one of their family's dogs to help look around when on July 9 they found even more bones as well as three 45 caliber bullets near the skeleton prompting the police to return. Likely due to the criticism's levied against them for how they conducted the investigation the police were much more thorough the second time around.
This time they recovered the entire body with the exception of some teeth and also investigated the history of the site it's self they also discovered the body was buried in a concrete tube (I think I used google translate). The area used to be a shooting range for US and British troops during WW2 and was a shooting range from the mid 40s to the early 50s. With this information in mind police believed that the bullets were unrelated to the body and could have been in the shallow grave the skeleton was found in even before the death of the skeleton. The shooting range was bulldozed in 1951 and residential housing was put up in 1954 leaving police to believe that the man was killed and buried sometime between 1951 - 1955. Only 4 Icelandic man disappeared during that time and none of them could be linked to the skeleton.
The police requestioned all the residents and two of them said. That some time from 1952 - 1955 there was a huge mound of dirt next to the pit the body was found they estimated that the mound of dirt was 70-80 cm high. None of the two witnesses though investigated as they thought the city was doing some construction work and filling the pit. However according to records The City of Reykjavík didn't start any projects in the area until 1967.
Another thing of note is that there were no stains on the concrete floor that would of been left there if the body was lying there right after death (via decomposition) which could of conflicted with the police's belief that he was killed the same date he was born (in the early 50s)
Here is a sketch the police made of the crime scene's layout i'd like if a native Icelander could translate the writing on the sketch
The police then sent the skeleton to the University of Iceland in Reykjavik where two professors named Ólafur Bjarnason and Jón Steffensen conducted the post mortem. These were there findings
The skeleton belonged to a male
He was around 40 when he died.
They were unable to determine when he was actually buried but their findings support the claim that he was killed in the early 50s
Every bone was recovered with the exception of two lower teeth however even with almost a full mouth of teeth in tact no dental records could be matched to the skeleton. They also concluded that he likely had trouble chewing
The skeleton also had no hair or nails
He was fully naked when buried with the exception of a pair of socks
His height was around 170 to 173 centimetres which is roughly 5'8
Throughout the course of the investigation the police only came up with one possible lead as to the identity of the skeleton. They for a brief time thought the body may belong to a sailor and fisherman named Sveinbjörn Jakobsson who vanished in Reykjavik on October 9, 1930 (I'm not sure why the police suspected him as being the body but they did.) He Jakobsson was the very first disappearance in Iceland to be investigated as a murder/kidnapping. However his daughter came forward and stated that the body was not that of her father as Jakobsson had false teeth while the skeleton did not (No pictures of Jakobsson seem to exist btw)
And after that if the investigation continued then either nothing was made public or uncovered. It appears that the police never did a facial reconstruction and it is unknown what happened to the body as there is no mention of the body having been buried and one of my sources I consulted (he runs a youtube channel called "Iceland in real life") Told me that in all likely hood the skeleton was cremated. No cause of death was ever released either Police only believe it's murder because of the circumstances of it's discovery and burial.
Although I have no theory's about the killer I personally believe that the victim was a foreigner. There are a few things that support this.
The entire population of Iceland in 1975 was 216,695. That is not the population of the capital it was the population of the entire country and that number was likely lower in the 50s when the man was actually killed.
Due to this Iceland is a everyone knows everyone type country in which almost every disappearance is usually a high profile case and often always in the front page of the newspapers so if he was a native Icelander it's likely his disappearance would of been covered extensively and he would of been identified soon after (this isn't like in the US that is likely what would of happened in Iceland)
Although he was discovered 12 years before the kennitala (Native icelanders will know what i'm talking about) was introduced Icelandic citizens were still given Identification numbers decades before and if this man was Icelandic he would of likely of had an ID number that could be traced to him.
But all this is just my opinion it is entirely possible the victim is from Iceland and his disappearance was just never reported
Pictures
This case has quite a lot of pictures of it due to the police not closing the crime scene the first time around
The children who discovered the body
A picture of the police's second on site investigation. (None of the articles mentioned it but it seems they actually got an excavator this time)
Police investigators examining a bone after finding it
An alternate angle of picture #3
The exact location of the burial site (the arrow is pointing at the victims skull)
Sources
www.dv.is/fokus/timavelin/2019/01/13/born-fundu-beinagrind-vid-faxaskjol/
timarit.is/files/16674291
timarit.is/files/16674347
timarit.is/files/16674396
timarit.is/files/12796045
www.dv.is/fokus/timavelin/2019/01/26/beinin-faxaskjoli-sennilega-faerd-ekkert-har-og-engar-neglur/
Even back them the police were criticized for how unprofessional their investigation was at the start. First of all the police did not close off the crime scene so anyone was free to just enter. The two investigators assigned to the case were named Magnús Eggertsson and Haukur Bjarnason. Haukur told the press that the one site investigation lasted for 2 hours and that he was treating the case as a murder. While the investigation was going on the police didn't call for a professional to unearth/excavate the area and instead just let the children continue to dig and run around the crime scene hoping they would find the rest of the bones themselves something Haukur admitted to allowing happen under his watch saying that the police will welcome any bones or evidence that they find.
The police then asked residents about the site around Faxaskjóli and if they heard of anything unusual going in that area in the past but nothing came to mind. The police then left saying they wouldn't investigate the site unless any new evidence came that required it.
The kids however continued after the police left and even got one of their family's dogs to help look around when on July 9 they found even more bones as well as three 45 caliber bullets near the skeleton prompting the police to return. Likely due to the criticism's levied against them for how they conducted the investigation the police were much more thorough the second time around.
This time they recovered the entire body with the exception of some teeth and also investigated the history of the site it's self they also discovered the body was buried in a concrete tube (I think I used google translate). The area used to be a shooting range for US and British troops during WW2 and was a shooting range from the mid 40s to the early 50s. With this information in mind police believed that the bullets were unrelated to the body and could have been in the shallow grave the skeleton was found in even before the death of the skeleton. The shooting range was bulldozed in 1951 and residential housing was put up in 1954 leaving police to believe that the man was killed and buried sometime between 1951 - 1955. Only 4 Icelandic man disappeared during that time and none of them could be linked to the skeleton.
The police requestioned all the residents and two of them said. That some time from 1952 - 1955 there was a huge mound of dirt next to the pit the body was found they estimated that the mound of dirt was 70-80 cm high. None of the two witnesses though investigated as they thought the city was doing some construction work and filling the pit. However according to records The City of Reykjavík didn't start any projects in the area until 1967.
Another thing of note is that there were no stains on the concrete floor that would of been left there if the body was lying there right after death (via decomposition) which could of conflicted with the police's belief that he was killed the same date he was born (in the early 50s)
Here is a sketch the police made of the crime scene's layout i'd like if a native Icelander could translate the writing on the sketch
The police then sent the skeleton to the University of Iceland in Reykjavik where two professors named Ólafur Bjarnason and Jón Steffensen conducted the post mortem. These were there findings
The skeleton belonged to a male
He was around 40 when he died.
They were unable to determine when he was actually buried but their findings support the claim that he was killed in the early 50s
Every bone was recovered with the exception of two lower teeth however even with almost a full mouth of teeth in tact no dental records could be matched to the skeleton. They also concluded that he likely had trouble chewing
The skeleton also had no hair or nails
He was fully naked when buried with the exception of a pair of socks
His height was around 170 to 173 centimetres which is roughly 5'8
Throughout the course of the investigation the police only came up with one possible lead as to the identity of the skeleton. They for a brief time thought the body may belong to a sailor and fisherman named Sveinbjörn Jakobsson who vanished in Reykjavik on October 9, 1930 (I'm not sure why the police suspected him as being the body but they did.) He Jakobsson was the very first disappearance in Iceland to be investigated as a murder/kidnapping. However his daughter came forward and stated that the body was not that of her father as Jakobsson had false teeth while the skeleton did not (No pictures of Jakobsson seem to exist btw)
And after that if the investigation continued then either nothing was made public or uncovered. It appears that the police never did a facial reconstruction and it is unknown what happened to the body as there is no mention of the body having been buried and one of my sources I consulted (he runs a youtube channel called "Iceland in real life") Told me that in all likely hood the skeleton was cremated. No cause of death was ever released either Police only believe it's murder because of the circumstances of it's discovery and burial.
Although I have no theory's about the killer I personally believe that the victim was a foreigner. There are a few things that support this.
The entire population of Iceland in 1975 was 216,695. That is not the population of the capital it was the population of the entire country and that number was likely lower in the 50s when the man was actually killed.
Due to this Iceland is a everyone knows everyone type country in which almost every disappearance is usually a high profile case and often always in the front page of the newspapers so if he was a native Icelander it's likely his disappearance would of been covered extensively and he would of been identified soon after (this isn't like in the US that is likely what would of happened in Iceland)
Although he was discovered 12 years before the kennitala (Native icelanders will know what i'm talking about) was introduced Icelandic citizens were still given Identification numbers decades before and if this man was Icelandic he would of likely of had an ID number that could be traced to him.
But all this is just my opinion it is entirely possible the victim is from Iceland and his disappearance was just never reported
Pictures
This case has quite a lot of pictures of it due to the police not closing the crime scene the first time around
The children who discovered the body
A picture of the police's second on site investigation. (None of the articles mentioned it but it seems they actually got an excavator this time)
Police investigators examining a bone after finding it
An alternate angle of picture #3
The exact location of the burial site (the arrow is pointing at the victims skull)
Sources
www.dv.is/fokus/timavelin/2019/01/13/born-fundu-beinagrind-vid-faxaskjol/
timarit.is/files/16674291
timarit.is/files/16674347
timarit.is/files/16674396
timarit.is/files/12796045
www.dv.is/fokus/timavelin/2019/01/26/beinin-faxaskjoli-sennilega-faerd-ekkert-har-og-engar-neglur/